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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Galapagos Journal - Santa Cruz Island, Puerto Ayora

There are about 30,000 people who live on the Galapagos
Islands. Most of those live on Santa Cruz and the majority of those residents
live in Puerto Ayora. This island had been colonized before 1959 when the
Ecuadorian government declared all the islands a national park. That same year,
the Charles Darwin Foundation was founded to promote scientific research and
ensure the conservation of the Galapagos. In 1992, the waters surrounding the
Galapagos were made a marine reserve.

The problem with people living on any of the islands is that
they make gardens, plant flowers and trees and bushes not native to the area,
and eat things that may have seeds that would be discarded and picked up by
birds, washed away in the rain, or otherwise transported to the other islands
that the park tries to keep pristine and true to its natural habitat. The only
way they can combat the intrusion of foreign plants is to pull them out by hand
when they are discovered growing in the park.

Just on the outskirts of Puerto Ayora is the Charles Darwin
Station for Giant Tortoise Breeding. The zodiacs deposited us on a pier in town
and buses took us to the Station about a five minute ride away. Jorge led us
through the Station pointing out the various stages of growth of the most
recently hatched tortoises.

The Charles Darwin Station was established in 1964 and is a part of the Charles Darwin Foundation which was set up in 1959 to help conserve the ecosystem and natural wonders of the Galapagos Islands. It began its tortoise program in 1965, just a year before the government of Ecuador declared the area a national park.

In the 1960s, the tortoise population of Espanola
Island came so close to extinction that all the remaining tortoises-12 females
and 2 males- were brought to the park and station headquarters for protection
and breeding. The adult tortoises breed, nest and are cared for
in captivity. The first successful hatching occurred in 1970-71. As with the
other races (they breed several different kinds of tortoise), the young are reared to three to five years of age and then
repatriated.

Unfortunately the Floreana subspecies is extinct and now with the passing of Lonesome George, the last remaining Pinta Island tortoise, his subspecies has also disappeared. In 1977, the return of Diego, an Espanola tortoise from the San Diego Zoo, helped to repopulate the Espanola subspecies. Originally there were 13 Espanola tortoises taken back in the 1930s for the zoo and Diego was the last one left of that group.

Diego is not the top guy at the station at what they estimate to be 130 years of age and is still dedicated to the survival of his species. He wasn't out and about yet when we arrived. Probably sleeping in. We could see what Jorge said was his shell way back under the trees but it was impossible to get a picture.

Espanola tortoises -1 male with 5 females and 2 males with 7 females- are permanently housed in two
corrals, each with several nesting areas. The tortoises breed before and during
the nesting season from June to December. During the nesting season, the
corrals are checked daily for nesting activity. A female tortoise builds her nest with her hind
legs, forming a hole about 35-40 cm deep and 10-15 cm wide, slighter wider at
the bottom. The eggs are lowered on strings of thick mucus, which provide a
soft landing. The mother buries the eggs and delicately pats down the soil with
the underside of her shell and her feet. The morning after the eggs are laid,
one of the park wardens will carefully remove them and transfer them to the
incubator.

When we had been through all the displays including some
that feature iguanas, we opted to walk back through town to the pier. It was
still early in the morning for the town folks but some were out waiting for the
tide to come in and release their boats from the muck. One family looked like
they wanted to get an earlier start and were trying to dislodge their skiff
from the mud it was stuck in. The kids were having a great time of it.

We sat for a time near the fishing pier and watched a
pelican try to down his over sized breakfast. Under one of the boats that was stuck in the mud of the low tide, a marine iguana munched on the algae that hung from the bottom.

A cool breeze from the sea
refreshed us after a very warm walk through the Station and the town. Slowly
storefronts began to raise their metal doors and merchants swept their steps
and sidewalks as they prepared for another day of business. The time on the
islands was an hour behind the time in Quito and the ship. Our cruise director,
Bitinia, had told us on our first day that the ship would stay with Quito time
to allow us a little extra daylight for exploring.

We weren’t interested in shopping so we meandered on down to
the pier to catch the first of the zodiacs back to the ship. It was
entertaining to watch the interaction or even the non-action of the sea lions
and the people coming and going from the main pier. There were quite a few
water taxis in the bay and they were picking up and dropping off. As people
walked up the gangways or landing areas, they had to step around or in some
cases, over sea lions.

One sea lion, not unlike a dog who is disturbed, threatened
to nip one fellow’s leg as he stepped too closely between one sea lion and
another. Earlier in the week, one of our fellow passengers had been nipped in
the leg while snorkeling. Apparently the sea lion felt threatened as the
snorkeler tried to get closer for a better picture. No real damage done though.
It was more of a warning.

For some reason there were large swells all day long in the
Puerto Ayora bay where our ship was anchored. It rolled back and forth testing
the worthiness of our sea legs. While I was a bit worn out from the heat, I
knew I didn’t want to spend the afternoon on the rolling ship either. I had to
decide what to do about the afternoon excursion to the area where there were
tortoises out roaming over some farmland. It would turn out to